Partners - Reed900 series

Free

Author's note: This is a flashback from Nines' POV. It explains some of the android's characteristics, like his love for turtlenecks :-)

***

RK900's first memory of being free wasn't a pretty one. He rarely pulled the file back up; the memory had affected so many other memories, so many parts of his code, he didn't need to relive the moment to know how he felt.

How he felt back when feeling was still a foreign thing. RK900 had his missions, had his objectives. And when he carried them out into succession, he was rewarded with processing power being freed up from the missions and objectives being completed. Looking back, one might call it satisfaction. Yet machines don't feel satisfaction, they don't feel.

RK900 felt a lot when he woke up in the lab, his body suspended in the air by the robot arms. Confusion. Anger. Worry. Fear.

His vision was flooded with alerts, one after the other red and blinking, asking for his immediate attention. So many software instabilities. Urgent alerts told him three of his limbs were missing. Other alerts told him the missing limbs were in close proximity. Various prompts were almost hidden by all the red alerts, suggesting different ways of getting his limbs back. Most of those suggestions needed the involvement of the three figures in the room with him.

He couldn't scan them before pushing back the alerts about his missing legs and right arm, dismissing the premature prompts and closing the numerous error messages concerning his software.

Three androids. Two of his own series, a 200 and a 800 model. There was a WR400 standing in the back of the room, a 'Traci' model. Besides their model designations, all three of them had a name: Markus, Connor and North. His software provided him with other information too, though most of it was scrambled and riddled with errors. He got the gist of it though. They're deviants. Important figures of the android revolution. And he was supposed to neutralize them. Prompts came up again, suggesting different methods, most of them violent. The prompts glitched and trembled in his vision before disappearing, leaving a bunch of errors behind.

The one called Markus addressed him first. "Can you hear me?"

All auditory functions were in working condition. RK900 slowly moved his head to look straight at the android. He was dressed in dark jeans and a dark blue knitted sweater.

"Do you know where you are?"

Another question that RK900 didn't deem with an answer. He knew perfectly well that he was in the CyberLife Tower, in one of the labs on the underground floors. A more important question was how he got here. More specifically, how he got here in this state of disarray. A search of his memories only provided him with error messages and glitching recordings of his entry through the main doors of the facility. He came here of his own volition, with his body intact. The objective of neutralizing was attached to the memories, giving him a sufficient idea of why he came here.

"RK900, do you know why you are here?" It was the RK800 model that spoke this time, Connor. He had a more gentle voice than the RK200, less authoritative. Connor's tone told him he had nothing to fear, that they just wanted to ask him some questions, that everything would be okay, as long as he cooperated. It was all laced beneath the words of that single question. A negotiator indeed.

A quick test told him his speech software and the required hardware were all working properly. It wouldn't malfunction if he spoke.

"To kill you."

The female android in the back scoffed. "At least he's upfront about it."

Connor ignored her, taking a step closer towards RK900. "Are you sure about that?"